Friday, March 27, 2015

Something happened as I was attempting to write an open letter to Phil Robertson. I am a Duck Dynasty fan and I am an atheist. Those of you who find that to be contradictory-- tell someone who cares. Not all of us non-believers are liberal or progressive or democrats or some combination of the three. I digress. The thing is, I was reading through the ton of media and blog coverage on Phil Robertson's remarks to the Vero Beach Prayer Breakfast that took place on Friday morning, March 20th in Vero Beach, Florida. Yeah, I listened to the recordings and watched the videos too. Phil Robertson is entitled to freedom of expression, just like every civilian in the United States is. Within that protection, he is allowed to be rude and crude and shocking and controversial. Talking about castration during a breakfast might have made me lose a bit of my appetite had I been there. But I wasn't there. Didn't know about it. Could not have afforded to go if I had been invited. Wasn't invited. Might have preferred to hang on the beach or at a bookstore instead had I been in Florida that morning. The rest of us civilians are entitled to freedom of expression too. Some folks have supported Phil. Others have not. And some people have pretty much exercised their freedom to not give a damn. Because as my good buddy Jeremy Crow points out, freedom of speech is not equivalent to freedom to be heard. We cannot fight all the battles there are or attend all the celebratory parties either. At first, I thought I hope Phil isn't suffering from some sort of neurological condition or disorder that would make inhibiting his dis-inhibitions tougher. [Between the changes after my brain injury and watching dad getting swallowed up by Lewy Body Dementia, there remains no mystery as to why I would think that almost immediately]. Then I thought, Geez, Phil Robertson doesn't think that we atheists have morals or values. Finally I said to myself, "I don't really know what he thinks. He is a dude on the teevee on a show that I love." Where his comments outrageous? Sure. Shocking? Yup. Do I approve of his parable about the atheist family? Nope. Does that mean he ought not to have said that stuff? Nope. Could he have expressed his point better? That's an opinion question. Will I continue to watch Duck Dynasty? Yep. Detractors talked about Phil Robertson having some kind of sick fantasy life. Defenders talked about moral relativism. I wasn't sure about this moral relativism stuff so I had to look it up. Some percentage of Christians are opposed to moral relativism. So Phil Robertson is a Christian who is opposed to moral relativism. Okay. Fine. I get that. Cool. And then I discovered that I fit-- somewhere-- into that scale of morally relativistic, although I am not sure of exactly where. Because there are things that I recognize as being wrong. I wanted to be some kind of Ayn Rand when I grew up, or at least a Nathaniel Branden. Instead I discovered that I am a sort of libertarian anarchist with decided ideas about less government being more fun. Which perhaps borrows something from each of them but with a slightly different spin. Christians who believe in absolute morality e.g. "God said it's wrong so it is" have a hard time understanding that atheists too possess morality. Rejection of a personal belief in any gods does not mean an automatic rejection of any sort of moral standards. Wherever morality and conscience come from, believers say the deity of their choice delivered the laws to live by and gave us individual consciences. Non-believers may cite Hammurabi's Code and then go on to talk about the evolutionary process and perhaps cultures and stuff like that. Then I ran into this article about The Islamic State training kids in the fine art of beheading people. http://www.gospelherald.com/articles/54915/20150326/isis-recruits-over-400-children-as-cubs-of-the-caliphate-training-includes-beheading.htm Uh. That there is wrong. The Islamic State or ISIS or those other initials that I can never remember indicate people following a version of Islam which is also caught up in the usurption of power and lives from a bunch of other nations and people. From there, my brain and my fingers jumped to some articles on the National Prayer Breakfast held on Feburary 5, 2015 in Washington D.C. at the Hilton. Not your average local diner or small restaurant. The guest list included the Dalai Lama dude in spite of protests by China over interference of other nations in the affairs of Tibet. Whether or not the current president is a "secret Muslim," he is doing a piss-poor job of convincing people otherwise. And then I made a judgement call. What President Obama said at the National Prayer Breakfast was far, far worse than what Phil Robertson said at the Vero Beach Prayer Breakfast. Obummer's appeal to the religious to remember that no one's god wants them to go whupping ass at random did not have any good effect on me. His stunning revelation that Christians did the Crusade thing back in the Middle Ages left me coldly shrieking in rage. Yo, the Crusades were a response to the Muslims of that time doing invasions. And many more people have been slaughtered by the uh extremist jihadists who we aren't supposed to believe are true Muslims than by the Crusaders. Besides that, the Crusades ain't happening now. We are living in a world where people get beheaded and stuff gets blown up. A world where some little kids strap on suicide vests and other little kids learn how to behead their perceived enemies. A world where Islam itself has not yet proven that it can take a seat at the prayer breakfast table. There's gangs of young people roaming around London imposing Sharia law at will. And other places too are getting thrust into this sort of stuff. What gives them the right? Every time we try to play nice with the ruffians who are endeavoring to take over the sandbox, we give them that right. Our president-- America first and all of that, home of the brave and the free-- gives them that right when he preaches his gospel of denial.Mr. President, your denial is threatening our way of life. The Islamic State or ISIS or whatever you wish to call it is composed of people following some version of Islam. They are Muslims. Not all Muslims want to implement or live under sharia law. But and however, the ones making the most noise right now are. Your failure to address this current event-- the attempted takeover by those favoring Sharia law-- sucks. Furthermore, I am still not over the notion that you visited Saudi Arabia recently in order to pay homage to both a dead king and a live king. Saudi Arabia, country of public beheadings. Don't you dare tell me that the folks in charge over there are not Muslims. And by the way Mr. President, some of us still fervently believe that human lives are far more important than big oil. Some of us acknowledge that we as a nation need to become independent of and and all oil that originates in other nations apart from this one, and that we need to develop technology for transportation that does not involve consumption of oil-- in that order, period. We need to make some tough decisions as a nation. If you are incapable of doing that, then you deserve to be voted out next time or not to run at all. You've encouraged (and that is putting it mildly) the N.S.A. and those other agencies to collect metadata on everyone everywhere to the point where sifting the threats and the possible threats from the non-threats is a daunting task (to put it mildly). Our fundamental right to some privacy has been eroded. You have cut the military defense budget. That is the height of stupidity given what is happening all over with the proponents of Sharia law. Then you tell the U.N. that ISIS is not Muslim and you tell a prayer breakfast stuff about distorted faith. Maybe Phil Robertson can pound some sense into your head, Mr. President. At least he is clear about exactly what the Islamic State is composed of and exactly what their aim is. And he has a plan for ISIS too. Phil Robertson is not living in a fairy tale world Mr. President. You are.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

I took the photograph, tubed it, modified the background, and added the phrase. You can save it to somewhere on your computer and you can also re-upload it to any social media site. Link-back to this blog is not required. If you are a copyright troll, I have no use for you so go away.

Obama
is planning to take some Medicare funds slated to pay for Medicare
medical insurance things and transfer that over to help pay for
ObamaCare type stuff. I recently got a form letter from my medical insurance company [the insurance company from where I get my Medicare
replacement insurance] telling me that they have "partnered with" a firm which is
offering me the wonderful and thrilling privilege of having a nurse
practitioner visit me in my home "for free." This nurse practitioner
from the firm is able to take my blood and my pee sample, perform a
"non-invasive" medical exam, and I can talk to him or her about any medical concerns that I am hesitant to tell my physician about.

I
researched the firm offering me this service. The firm is called Matrix
Medical. What I found was that several of the larger medical insurance
companies are targeting their Medicare old people, Medicare disabled
people, and their Medicare old disabled people for visits by Matrix
Medical [and comparable other firms].

During this "free" visit [I found the form also], the nurse practitioner will be asking stuff like: You got a health care proxy? You got a living will? Have you ever drank too much? Have you ever taken drugs not prescribed for you? Which ones? When was your last _______________ ? [medical tests and exams]

and he or she will "inspect your home" for anything that indicates a risk for falling. And so on.

But
see, the thing is, Matrix Medical is not offering this service out of
the goodness of its corporate heart. Oh no. This is being offered to
"us" to pick up more codes on what is wrong with us a.k.a. our medical conditions because each diagnostic code is worth money. Money
that would otherwise be transferred to help pay for ObamaCare. Money
which the Medicare replacement insurance company could get once the
nurse practitioner calls our primary care docs in order to have them
include these extra codes on our patient charts. It is basically a
scheme to keep any "extra?" monies within the Medicare replacement
insurance company system rather than have it be line item transferred to
the ObamaCare system. Head spinning yet?

Of course there is also
the collection of health data, and the tracking of old/disabled/old and
disabled people into disease management and/or case management.

We
had one hang-up call. The number when reverse traced belongs to Matrix
Medical. Apparently when I didn't answer the robot thingy that was calling me fast
enough, the connection terminated. Reports on the scam phone call sites
indicate that this number allegedly called some people more than once. Then
someone wrote that Matrix Medical is legit. But the old people are
getting called repeatedly and harassed to allow the home visit. Once an
old/disabled/old and disabled person says no to the home visit, they
may be offered an appointment at some facility instead or pressured to
sign a form that does not have any filled in information on it and send
it back to Matrix Medical.

The comments on the "what is it like
to work for ___________ ?" sites indicate some employees are happy at
Matrix Medical while others acknowledge that the telemarketing job in
particular leads to nowhere and that the nurse practitioners are
overworked unless they are among the management favorites. One or two of
the telemarketers feel badly that they were hired to pressure the old
people into accepting these appointments.

A few news articles and
investigative journalism pieces indicate that the firms offering this
home visit "service" fought when Congress wanted to ban this crap and so
it is currently still allowed.

Another article admitted that
people in ObamaCare may be subjected to this same sort of code-inflating
hunt thing but not for two years. Because ObamaCare wants to be
evaluated without inflating the codes first. Great, huh?

Meanwhile,
the medical insurance companies have targeted the old/disabled/old and disabled folks on
Medicare replacement medical insurance part of their businesses for now and several of the larger medical insurance companies have "partnered with" these firms.

radical sapphoq says: No, these people will not
be allowed into my home, to make an appointment with me, or to pressure
me into signing any sort of paper for them. I've included links so
you'll can look up this stuff too if you want to. If you do nothing else, you should read some of the articles about this over at The Center for Public Integrity website listed at the end of this post.